[Coco] lets play canyon climber from floppy disk ( 8 inch floppy disk)

[Gene Heskett]

On Wednesday 06 November 2019 18:18:35 Arthur Flexser wrote:

> As we alarmingly learned
> <https://www.cbsnews.com/news/whos-minding-the-nuclear-weapons/> in
> 2014, the US military has been using 8-inch floppy disks in an
> antiquated '70s computer to receive nuclear launch orders from the
> President. Now, the US strategic command has announced that it has
> replaced the drives with a "highly-secure solid state digital storage
> solution," Lt. Col. Jason Rossi told *c4isrnet.com
> <https://www.c4isrnet.com/air/2019/10/17/the-us-nuclear-forces-dr-stra
>ngelove-era-messaging-system-finally-got-rid-of-its-floppy-disks/>* .
> https://www.engadget.com/2019/10/18/us-military-nuclear-missiles-flopp
>y-disks/
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I suppose we can rest a bit easier now that they are no longer using
> these floppies in the missile silos!  Wonder if they replaced them on
> account of the rosette problems Gene mentioned.
>
> Art
'twouldn't surprise me Art, but please recall that the military has an 
ironclad rule that when repairing any bit of failed equipment, that only 
OEM parts are to be used, regardless of how much better it might work if 
todays parts could be used. Same rules for AEC stuff, which is all 
frozen at about 1962 technology, meaning pig pass transistors in power 
supplies are frozen forever in germainium transistor technology. My 
youngest is doing exactly that sort of stuff, searching every graveyard 
electronics place on the planet to find parts to repair that stuff. In 
one case paying nearly $2000 for a part that I used dozens of fixing car 
radios and billed The customer $1.55 each in those times.  Then it has 
to undergo the same environmental tests it had to pass at the factory 
and get a passing grade before they can ship it back to where it came 
from.

Heckel your congress critters to do 2 things. First make it legal to use 
a newer tech, far better specced part, and 2, that someone with at least 
a C.E.T. card in their card carrier, actually does the hot iron work and 
signs off on it that it was properly done including redrawing the 
schematic so it was accurate to what went back out the door to ups.

That right there would save the AEC and military at least a billion a 
year.  And when the infant mortality has been fixed, they'd have far 
more dependable equipment.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
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 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.
 - Louis D. Brandeis
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>